58 years ago Jackie Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis: a short Valentino outfit, a bow instead of a veil, and an America that never forgave her

On 20 October 1968 Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of US President John F. Kennedy, married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. She was 39, he was 62 - divorced, 23 years her senior. The wedding was Orthodox and private, in the chapel of Panagitsa on Skorpios, Onassis's private island in Greece. Around 40 people attended, including both their children and Lee Radziwill, Jackie's younger sister. It was raining, there were no flowers in the chapel, and the only light came from candles. The celebration continued on the yacht "Christina", with pink champagne.

Jackie wore a short two-piece haute couture outfit by Valentino, from the spring-summer 1968 collection. According to reports at the time, Valentino himself didn't know which design she had chosen until the photographs came out. The ivory outfit had a lace top with a high collar, long, slightly gathered sleeves and pearl buttons, and a pleated silk crêpe skirt that ended above the knee. She is said to have owned an almost identical design, worn a few months earlier at a friend's wedding. Instead of a veil she put a large white bow in her chestnut hair and wore flat shoes - according to "The Washington Post", to soften the height difference: around 1.70 metres for her, around 1.65 for him. The outfit was sold at auction in September 2024 for 24,320 dollars.

The first wedding was a completely different story. In 1953 the 24-year-old Jacqueline Bouvier married Kennedy, then a senator from Massachusetts, in front of around 1,200 guests, with a five-tier cake and a princess-cut dress by Ann Lowe - an African American designer whose name was kept quiet for a long time. Seven years later the couple moved into the White House.

Then came Dallas. On 22 November 1963 Kennedy was assassinated, and Jackie, then 34, was left alone with two small children, a few months after they had also lost baby Patrick, born prematurely. For hours she refused to take off the pink Chanel suit soaked in her husband's blood. Biographer Donald Spoto later wrote that her admirers wanted to freeze her in the image of the brave widow devoted to her children.

Onassis owned a shipping empire and an airline, and was long linked to opera diva Maria Callas - and to Lee Radziwill. It was Lee who in 1963 invited Jackie onto the "Christina". In June 1968 Robert Kennedy was also assassinated, and the engagement was announced four months later. Her personal assistant Kathy McKeon later recounted that Jackie felt very lonely and wanted someone to share her life with.

America was in no mood for explanations. "The New York Times" described the reaction as anger, shock and dismay. Critics pointed to the age difference, Onassis's divorce, his past relationships and claims that she had married for money. Some papers asked whether she would be excommunicated by the Catholic Church, because Onassis's first wife was still alive. One headline read: "Jackie, how could you?" The country wanted a monument, not a woman. How often, even today, is a widow judged for deciding to live again?

The marriage brought no peace. Onassis's son Alexander died in a plane crash in 1973, and Onassis himself died in Paris on 15 March 1975, aged 69. Jackie, then 45, was widowed for the second time. She went on to work as a book editor, had a long relationship with Maurice Tempelsman and never married again. She died in 1994, aged 64, and is buried next to John F. Kennedy. The headstone reads "Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis" - although, according to biographer Sarah Bradford, the name Onassis was not mentioned once at the funeral services.